I was able to hustle a bit and work on some behind the scenes aspects of Money Manifesto.

Before we get to how much money I made, let’s dive into what I learned in July.

What I Learned About Self Employment Last Month

I learned one major thing in July. Having a routine helps immensely with getting things done. I had been struggling with finding time to make improvements to Money Manifesto, but I was finally able to get some things rolling. More on those later.

Setting a schedule has been rough for me because my wife works three 12 hour night shifts each week. She doesn’t work a set schedule, so her days change from week to week.

On top of that, I’m responsible for watching our son while my wife sleeps on her work days. That makes getting things done for Money Manifesto and my freelance clients more difficult than I’d like.

Recently, we’ve gotten into a rhythm where our son will take at least one long nap per day. I always work during naps. However, we’ve started a set bed time for him and that has worked wonders.

Now I head to my office to work every night after he goes to bed. That gives me a few hours of solid, uninterrupted work time to accomplish tasks on my list.

As our son gets older, I imagine I’ll run into new challenges. I’d like to have even more time to work, but we’re putting our family first at this point.

In the future, we’ll consider day care or having someone come to watch our son while I work during the day. For now, we’re happy with how things are, even if that means my income is a bit lower than we’d prefer.

July 2017 Online Income – $3,047.99

In July, I earned $3,047.99. It was pretty close to my $3,000 minimum, but it isn’t the end of the world.

Freelance Writing

Freelance writing continues to be one of the top ways I earn money each month. I’m slowly growing the number of freelance writing clients I am accepting, which is leading to a more diversified source of income.

Having a more diversified source of income will help in the coming months. While my past clients always assigned me articles on a weekly basis, some of my new clients don’t seem to have a set schedule.

This has thrown me for a bit of a loop because I can’t count on the income with this newer client as much as I can on my income from other clients. In the end, I think I just need to take on more clients even if it means more late nights and less sleep.

If you want to start earning money from freelance writing, it isn’t super difficult. However, I highly suggest taking Holly Johnson’s Earn More Writing course so you don’t waste hours of your time learning lessons you could learn in a few minutes from Holly’s course.

Yes, it costs a decent amount of money. That said, I’ve already earned back more than the price of the course using what I’ve learned from the course.

Branded Content

My branded content income has slowed down a bit, which is a major bummer for me. However, I have found a new way to earn more branded content income.

I have an old website I had forgotten about but is still up and running. Whenever anyone asks about branded content I won’t accept for Money Manifesto, I pitch my old website and see if they bite.

I had my first bite in July and the little bit of extra income helped me reach my income goal for the month.

Affiliate Income

Affiliate income hasn’t been a huge focus of mine lately. I continue to earn the little bit from old blog posts that generate a small amount of income. That said, I’ll definitely be focusing on this once I get to the correct part of the Elite Blog Academy course.

In fact, I’ll be taking Michelle’s Making Sense of Affiliate Income course when I do reach that part of Elite Blog Academy because I’ve heard such rave reviews. If you’d like to take Michelle’s course, you can sign up here.

Traditional Advertisements

I had a small increase for traditional advertising dollars in July thanks to a change in how one of my ad networks displays ads.

It isn’t anything that should be intrusive to the readers, but it seems to have increased my traditional advertisement income a little bit. We’ll see if it keeps up in future months or not.

What I’m really looking forward to is growing my blog a bit bigger so I can access some larger ad networks. Unfortunately, I need to grow my blog by about three times its current size to qualify for the ones I have my eye on.

What I’m Doing To Improve

As I mentioned above, I’m currently in the process of taking Elite Blog Academy. My current big task is redesigning Money Manifesto. I’m most of the way to the new design, but I still need a new logo and a few other things before I make the new design live.

Income wise, I’m more open to taking on new clients that come my way. I already picked up one new client toward the end of July. We’ll see if they turn out to be a recurring client or just a client for the current project I’m working on.

You Can Start Your Own Blog – It’s Easier Than You’d Think

Without starting Money Manifesto, I never would have made a penny of online income. Having a blog opened so many doors that eventually allowed me to make working online my full time gig.

Starting a blog won’t earn you money overnight, but it will give you a platform to start displaying your work so you can begin earning your own online income.

SiteGround costs a few dollars more than the host many popular bloggers suggest, but their product and customer service is many times better.

At one time I suggested the bigger host, BlueHost, to my readers because of their rock bottom pricing. Unfortunately, their product and customer service slowly eroded until I could no longer recommend them.

Big bloggers recommend them because they offer high affiliate payouts. I’d rather earn less money and suggest a host I know will be a good fit for my readers.

That’s it for this month’s income report. August should be another busy month between watching our son, trying to get work done for clients and for my blog. We’ll see how it goes!

What questions do you have? Leave a comment or shoot me and email and I’ll get back to you!

Hey there! I'm Lance! I created Money Manifesto to help others improve their finances. I hope you take a look around. Let me know if I can help you out with anything. Feel free to contact me! To learn more about me click here.

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About the Author

My name is Lance Cothern. I'm an accountant by day and personal finance blogger by night. I graduated from college debt free and passed the CPA exam shortly after.

After reading personal finance blogs for many years I finally decided to start my own blog to help people become financially successful. Read more about me and my blog or connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, or my RSS feed.

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